i’d almost forgotten how terrific the feeling is

Stubborn socks, and stubborn pants, many shirts, the under things, the coat, boots, layers and layers of stubborn stuff. It's burying me in hatred for this day, for any day, for the fact that days were invented in the first place, for the fact that there was a person or a coincidence of chemicals that came along, smashed into each other, and set the world into the spinning motion that gives us dark and light and those stupid building blocks of days—the hours.

 

You wouldn't believe the stack of days I've constructed from trying to elude the existence of hours.

 

I just want to sleep a little longer, a little more. Last night I drifted off to a movie where unspeakable things were acted out on screen. All night I had these skipping record visions of different miseries.

 

All in all, my sleep was not unsound.

 

I'm a mole, I'm a worm. I'm brushing my teeth, I'm combing my hair.

 

Reluctantly, I open the door and, along with everything else—the wind and the particles of snow it sweeps up, the daggers of ice on the overhangs, the shivering underdressed kids waiting for buses, the squirrels that infest the garage—I tighten with cold and become externally numb.

 

Only then do my insides melt.

 

It feels terrific. I'd almost forgotten how terrific the feeling is.